


The Sun and Moon Endure

by Lisse



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, N Things, Speculation, Star Wars: The Force Awakens Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 23:22:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5720851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisse/pseuds/Lisse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The past tells stories. Not everyone listens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sun and Moon Endure

**i.**

Iope is a gloriously beautiful world, all beaches and sand and sunshine and, Finn quickly discovers, roving packs of needle-toothed carnivorous marine life _exactly_ the same color as the warm green water. One of the other, lesser generals puts him and the rest of the Resistance's walking wounded on fish-murdering detail, charging them with keeping the damn things away from the camouflaged power cables said fish are so fond of chewing on.

"You know," he says four days into this, when the novelty of being outside has well and truly worn off, "this isn't what I signed up for."

The general arches an eyebrow at him. She's a human woman with skin like old leather and a bad limp and a cane and hair dyed such a bright purple that it's probably visible from upper orbit. "What, providing a vital service to the Resistance?"

"Killing evil fish," he says, and catches one of the aforementioned scaly bundles of homicidal rage to hold it up as proof. It makes a spirited attempt to eviscerate him. And it hisses. Finn admittedly doesn't have a lot of experience with fish, but he's pretty sure most of them don't _hiss_.

The general pokes it with a finger, then ignores it entirely in favor of giving him a look he can't read and wishes he could. He'll never admit it - not with several decades between their one bit of common ground, not when she's been a thorn in Imperial and First Order sides longer than he's been alive - but it's comforting to know that she exists, that there's another defector somewhere the Resistance.

"Can I ask you something?" he says suddenly, like he wasn't just complaining about murderfish.

She tilts her head to one side. Everyone else is closer to the power cables, splashing and cursing and safely out of earshot.

Finn takes a deep breath and says, "Did you ever believe in it?"

He doesn't have to explain the all-encompassing thing that _it_ is: the ideology, the drumbeat of _order order order_ , the dark undercurrent lurking beneath the red banners and black uniforms. Not to her, at least.

For a moment she's silent. Then the hand not clutching the cane clamps down on his shoulder like durasteel. "More than you ever did, kid." Her sudden smirk is mischievous, for all that it looks like a slash across her worn face. "Now get your ass back to work. Those fish won't kill themselves."

 

 

**ii.**

The mission briefing delicately describes Naboo and its people as "set in their ways". It's a Republic world, or it was until Starkiller Base threw the Republic into disarray, but it is slow to embrace drastic action; Resistance sympathies are there, but the active cell is very small.

"I appreciate you coming all this distance," the leader of said cell tells Poe. Minister Naberrie is perhaps sixty, elegantly dressed, hair elaborately plaited and coiled; he can't quite shake the feeling that she wants to serve him tea and is restraining herself. "I would have used our usual channels, but this is too sensitive."

They are meeting at the old boat dock below the Naberrie family's beautiful country home. Aside from Poe and the minister, the only other person present is the minister's daughter, a young woman who looks and doesn't look like Rey, not so much a copy as an homage made of delicate spun glass. At the minister's nod, she produces a small fist-sized cube from somewhere in her voluminous sleeves and holds it out with both hands.

"I purchased this at some expense many years ago," Minister Naberrie continues as Poe accepts the cube. It feels strange and warm under his fingers and reminds him of his mother's tree in a way he can't quite put into words. "I had always intended to give it to Luke Skywalker, but under the circumstances…" Here she trails and smiles, almost apologetically. "I suppose it's best that I didn't. If your General can put it to use now, nothing would please me more."

Poe knows next to nothing about Naberries beyond what was in the mission briefing. They are well-to-do, as deeply loyal to their kin as most Naboo tend to be, and - with one relatively recent and very deceased exception - a force in local system politics, but nowhere else. He has no idea what reasons Minister Naberrie and her daughter had for finding and concealing a Jedi holocron, only that thanks to the Empire and the First Order, it may well be the last one in the galaxy.

"Thank you," he says, and means it. "For preserving this. It will mean everything to the Resistance."

"My dear boy," Minister Naberrie says, not unkindly, "what in the world makes you think I did this for the _Resistance?_ "

 

**iii.**

Tatooine is a lot like Jakku. This is not a compliment.

Luke's off doing something-or-other in the Jundland Wastes, whatever _those_ are, and so Rey is left to wander the streets of Mos Eisley at her leisure. There is _more_ of everything here than there ever was on Jakku - more water, more food, more people, more shadows lurking at the edges of perception. She keeps her blaster tucked in her belt, makes eye contact and occasionally sharp-elbow contact with anyone trying to sneak up on her and pick her pocket, and wanders wherever her feet take her.

They take her to a small scrap shop, as it happens.

"We don't want any!" the owner snaps as she steps inside, only to blink when he sets eyes on her. He is bald and stooped and _old_. "All right, who are you, then?"

Rey is already sorry she came here. "Nobody."

"Nobody, eh?" The old man shuffles across the distance between them and peers up at her at her face. "You're wearing a lightsaber, Nobody."

"So what if I am?"

The old man's face splits into a mostly toothless grin. "I knew a Jedi, you know. When we were young. Before he was a Jedi. You ever hear the name _Skywalker_ before?"

Now she knows why the Force brought her here, although that doesn't necessarily mean the Force knows what it's doing. "I might," she says very carefully. She won't shoot harmless old men, but if he tries to tell the local crime lords about her, she isn't above clobbering them over the head.

But he just laughs. "You'd be thinking of Luke Skywalker, of course. But there's another one, you know."

And Rey _does_ know, more than she ever wanted to. She is nothing and no one to Darth Vader and his legacy, but she stands in his shadow all the same. One day it will be her responsibility to bury its ghosts once and for all, because General Organa can't and Luke won't and Rey will _destroy_ Kylo Ren if he ever so much as breathes in Finn's direction again, Jedi code be damned.

She knows all about Vader, more than this old man ever will - just as this old man, in turn, surely knows Anakin Skywalker better than his own children.

"Would you tell me about him?" she asks. For Luke, she tells herself. For any scrap of information she can use against Ren.

Her words feel too big for the little shop, but the old man doesn't seem to notice. He grabs her hand in both of his and ushers her to the bench set against the far wall. He is already telling her about pod races.

 

 

**iv.**

He isn't dreaming of a hand on his face or a girl in the snowy woods. This is already a significant improvement.

"Ben," someone says, and Kylo Ren turns to snarl at them because _that's not his name_.

He is absolutely sure he has never dreamed about this woman before. He remembers what he dreams, even when he would very much prefer it to be otherwise.

"Look at you," she sighs. She is not as old as his mother, not quite, but her face is care-lined in a way that makes them seem similar, somehow. The Force is all around her, permeating her in a way he has never seen with anyone, not even his uncle.

He's not sure she's real. He's quite positive she isn't alive.

"What do you want?" he asks.

She smiles sadly. "To ask if you're happy."

"Of course I am." Of course he is. Obviously he is. He is following in his grandfather's footsteps. He is closer to his goals now than he has ever been.

"They're not what you want," the woman says with a gentle headshake, the movement so slight that he's not really sure it was there at all. It takes him a moment to realize she is responding to words he never said. "Pretending they are will destroy you. There is too much good in you, Ben."

"That's _not my name!_ " he snarls - at bulkheads, at the dim light in his quarters. He is awake and very much alone, not even an echo of a presence left in the Force.

All the same, he waits for her to reappear. He will lash out with all of his anger and force her to see _exactly_ how badly she's misjudged him. Of course he's happy. Of _course_ he is.

He waits for the rest of the night.

The woman does not return.


End file.
